We’re still in the mountains, this time in Switzerland, courtesy of Ian Walton. 

The picture : Swiss summer

I spend a fair bit of the last year doing some photography and marketing for a bike travel company and I got to go on a few recce trips – like this one in Switzerland to ride two of my favourite passes: the Furka and the Gotthard. In some ways I was lucky that my mate wasn’t really feeling it with the weather and built up fatigue from a tough month, so I got to ride the Gotthard pass alone: peaceful, challenging and calming, it feels a unique place. Cobbled up to over 2,000m, switchbacks and on the day I did it, shrouded in patchy cloud – beneath and above me.

This shot, though, has more importance for me in a wider context of the year and beyond going forward. I managed to haul my mate out of the van to ride the Furka with me. A shared ride on one of the best roads you can find, in ‘epic’ weather, making future plans. All in all, those high mountains of Switzerland were a contemplative voyage of discovery. As ever, I wanted to try and capture the emotion of the moment, of the day. To capture some of that escape, the contemplation.

Follow Ian as The Musette on Twitter, Instagram and his website. Check out the features we’ve done with him in the past.